7 shootings wound 19 over eight hours

Instances of gun violence in August outpacing total from last year

Paramedics treat gunshot victims in the 7800 block of South Essex Avenue on Thursday night. Eight people were wounded in the confrontation. A total of 19 people were shot in seven separate shootings from Thursday night into early Friday morning on the South and West sides. (Devlin Brown, For the Chicago Tribune)

Just when it seemed that police might be making progress containing the violence that has plagued Chicago this year, seven separate shootings on the South and West sides left 19 people wounded and again drew national attention to the city's internecine gang wars.

The violent outburst happened over about an eight-hour period spanning Thursday night and Friday morning. At one point, 13 people were wounded in just half an hour.

July was the first month of the year to have fewer homicides compared with 2011, giving police confidence that anti-gang initiatives were taking hold. But August's death toll is already 65 percent higher than at the same time last year, and shootings so far this month are up 25 percent compared with the same period in 2011, far worse than the overall year-to-date rate.

This swift round of 19 people shot — none fatally — painted a picture of how volatile the city's streets remain.

News of Chicago's rash of violence appeared on newspaper websites across the country, and users talked about it so much on the social media site Twitter that "Chicago" was briefly on its list of trending topics.

About 9:30 p.m. Thursday, at 79th Street and Essex Avenue, two gunmen opened fire from a passing car, wounding eight people on the street, including five teenage boys.

The area is known to Chicago police as Terror Town and has been the scene of heated gang rivalries between the Gangster Disciples and the Black P. Stones. Police said Thursday's shootout in the South Chicago neighborhood might have stemmed from a dispute within one of those gangs.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told reporters Friday evening that the area around the shooting site is well-covered by police. He said surveillance video footage showed 10 squad cars rode by 79th and Essex in the hour before the crime.

He also said two police officers dispersed a large crowd from the corner about 25 minutes before the shooting.

"If we would've done that five minutes before the shooting, maybe it wouldn't have happened," McCarthy said after speaking at a Chatham park event in honor of slain Chicago police Officer Thomas Wortham IV. "Although maybe we prevented the shooting 20 minutes sooner."

One of the people shot was a 19-year-old woman who was either on her way to work or coming home. The victim's mother said her daughter is attending Robert Morris College and studying criminal justice.

"She's an innocent bystander. That's all I have to say," the mother said in a brief telephone interview.

Police said some of the victims were refusing to cooperate with investigators. McCarthy noted the difficulty that police face in reducing crime and that help from the community is badly needed.

"Law enforcement alone is not going to fix this problem. And I think last night proves it," he said.

Janet McKinney, who runs a women's shelter at the Church of God in Christ, said the neighborhood is "quite bad" and shootings are routine.

"You hear people screaming and hollering all the time," McKinney said.

She works five days a week at the shelter and said she walks hastily to her car when it's time to go home at night.

"Years ago, the neighborhood was great," she said. "Gangs started moving here. It just got bad."

When the shooting began, officers in the area heard the shots and spotted a car speeding away, police said. The car was later found abandoned near the South Shore Motel at East 81st Street and South Stony Island Avenue. Authorities said it was riddled with bullet holes and there was blood on the hood, leading police to believe someone at the shooting scene returned fire.

A trail of blood from the car led police to the motel, where police suspected the gunmen may have been in a first-floor room. SWAT officers were summoned to the scene and a helicopter hovered over the motel, shining a light onto the building. Police entered the room after a few hours and recovered a few guns but found no one inside.

The other victims were two 14-year-old boys, one shot in the arm, one in the foot; a 15-year-old boy shot in the back of the neck; two 16-year-old boys, one shot in the foot, the other twice in the leg; a 20-year-old shot in the leg; and a 28-year-old shot in the chest.

Thursday night's shooting at 79th and Essex happened around the corner from the site of a Feb. 19 shooting in which a gunman opened fire into a crowd standing in front of a liquor store, killing two and wounding five others.